Chapter 20 – The First Elimination
The early morning haze had barely lifted from the palace gardens when the scream shattered the stillness.
Eira jerked upright in bed, heart pounding. For a moment, the sound echoed in her skull, disorienting and raw. She scrambled out of the covers and rushed to the balcony, Mira already at her side, eyes wide with dread.
Down in the center courtyard, chaos had bloomed.
Servants rushed to form a perimeter. Royal guards barked orders. And lying motionless on the marble steps of the Rose Fountain was the crumpled body of Lady Virelle—her pale lavender gown soaked through with red, her fingers twisted into claws as if she had been fighting something no one could see.
A thin stream of black smoke still curled from her chest.
"No... no, that’s not possib
